Rocket Ball

Rocket Ball (also known as Robot Ball) is the 2nd episode of the 2003 series.

Plot

The episode begins with the opening game for Rocket Ball (a sport played by teams of robots which has a huge popularity). Harley, the superstar for Team Omega, quickly attracts attention with his expert skills -easily resulting in a goal. However, Dr Tenma (name not revealed yet), is quite unimpressed with the match, saying it is foolish and that they “haven’t seen anything yet”.

Astro and Dr O’Shay are flying on one of Metro City’s hover-roads in their hover-car, when they notice the match. The cheeky Astro instantly gets into trouble after falling into the stadium and intercepting Harley’s pass, surprising Tenma. After much attention from the media, O’Shay takes Astro home and bumps into Police Inspector Tawashi, who reveals that Astro was in fact built by Tenma before he went insane and burnt down the lab as previous Minister of Science. O’Shay, the next day organises Astro to go on a field trip with Nora, in order for him to better grasp the relationship between robots and humans. Meanwhile, it is Round 2 and Harley is preparing for his match, but unfortunately Tenma sabotages Harley’s (and his teammates’) system with a pair of sunglasses delivered by his robot dog. Astro sees a couple of human kids playing rocket ball and gets involved, with a boy called Nicholas. Their game is cut short when Tenma’s robot dog takes away their ball.

Astro and Nicholas launch in hot pursuit, and the dog leads them into the rocket ball stadium, while the game is in full swing. With the sunglasses on, Team Omega instantly engages in foul play, destroying the robot referee as well as attacking the opposing team’s players. Things become even more out of the ordinary when, inside the stadium all means of exiting the stadium has been denied, since the doors and even the ceiling has been shut. Harley throws the ball to Astro in the grandstand and Tenma’s robot dog asks him to play the game. Things are further complicated when Harley demands that Astro play them, or else they will actively hurt the spectators. With Astro on the opposing team, Team Omega is defeated. However, all of Team Omega’s players combine to form a super-robot which attacks Astro - but when Astro takes off its sunglasses, the threat is over. Part of the stadium threatens to fall over Nicholas, but Astro pushes it off just as another piece falls. However, Harley this times saves the day. The episode ends with O’Shay realising that the glasses, which he has found, has been built by Tenma.